Will the sentence deter other people? Government said Zhao should be punished or else there will be a perverse incentive to do what Zhao did. Burck is arguing that prison time will tell people not to come to the US and accept responsibility for their crimes.
If the government wanted to put Zhao in jail for serious time, why did they let him plead to something with such a short sentence? It makes me wonder about the matter under seal we keep hearing about.
He and Burck are having a back-and-forth now about the appropriateness of jail time as recommended by the probation department.
We know from CZ’s messages quoted in multiple court cases that avoiding anti-money laundering controls was not exactly a mistake but a strategy. The language cuts against the idea that CZ is taking “full responsibility” for his misconduct...
He’s making a strong case that the government’s request for three years is way out of line. CZ looks less unhappy listening to his lawyers speak; he’s listening intently, with his eyebrows up.
“When we read the government’s submission... it read to us like the kind of submission a desperate defendant would write” because it says, essentially, to ignore the sentencing guidelines.
Some of the filings have been sealed. Wonder what this is!!
He “admitted his mistake,” Bartlett says, and asks whether there is anything else CZ could possibly have done to show remorse. Bartlett says he can’t think of anything else.
“When I hear the government discussing the crime here, they don’t seem to be discussing the actual crime,” which is that CZ pleaded guilty to not having an anti-money laundering program. The sanctions violations are irrelevant.
They’re recommending a custodial sentence of 5 months, which they feel is enough to deter defendant and others “without being unnecessarily harsh.” It would be one of the longest sentences for such conduct in this country.
He’s been listening to Mosely with his eyebrows up, forehead furrowed, at times frowning.
The government’s request is double the top end of the guideline range. Wouldn’t that create a disparity in sentencing? Mosley argues that the disparity is in the magnitude of the conduct, and because CZ is an individual who directed it.
“An outcome where a defendant makes a plan to violate US law, does so on a massive scale, makes extraordinary amounts of money” and then gets to go home to make money after getting caught means another rational actor might take that chance.
“The brazen nature of this conduct does require a sentence that includes a meaningful period of incarceration.” The scale of this crime is “magnitudes of order” greater than other offenses, Mosley says.